May Letter from the Director - New Beginnings

I wanted to write to you all to share some of the new things that we are doing here at Whole Connection.  

We find it important to not only serve those in our community who are looking for counseling, but also organizations who want support for their employees.

We began a weekly drop in mindfulness group for the city of Boulder. Participants have been learning a wide variety of mindfulness practices that they can incorporate into their daily lives either at home or work. Reported benefits have included an increased understanding of individual stress responses and reactivity, a greater sense of calm, improved self regulation skills, and improved communication.  With the city we also hosted a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction group. This was offered due to a desire from the city for greater care for their employees and support around mental health.  Although this is our first time running this group for the city, we aim to continue to provide opportunities for city employees in the future. 

Through our work with the city we were connected to the Fire Department, a group of people bravely helping serve residents.  We were brought in to discuss stress, what it is, how it affects the body and brain, and what we can do about it.  Although it took us nine trainings, we ended up getting to talk to nearly every firefighter to help support them.

Lastly we have recently built a collaboration of care with Take Two Health, a small local medical clinic in town. You can learn more about them on their website.  We currently have two of our therapists onsite at the clinic each week working with individuals through counseling and groups.  By using this integrative model we hope to better serve people by having more viewpoints and engaged support with every client.

As we continue to expand in other ways to serve those in our community we will continue to care for those clients we see here weekly and search for other new ways to support the community we are a part of here in Boulder.